"— then we came here. One of the jocks found her like this. And Tony, I swear, I was this close to punching Bryce right in the mouth too."

"Oh please, Clay. You come right up to his chest. He's also 6" 0' and 200 pounds heavier than you."

"Dude!"

"Fine, I'll back off. So with Isabelle, you didn't notice her fall or anything?"

My eyelids are stuck together as the world slowly comes to around me.

"I didn't," Another silence filled the room. "Some random jock had to help her up, I feel terrible about it. She passed out only four feet away from me, Tony, and I was too busy acting like a douchebag to notice her on the fucking floor."

"Clay, don't blame yourself for this."

Shivering from the freezing concrete underneath me, I flex my pained jaw as I lay wrapped in unknown blankets.

"I am going to blame myself, cause it's my fault!"

The air is cold and wet, and the wind whistles in my ear as it passes through the expansive area around.

"Don't say that, Clay, there's no way you could have known. If you had looked away, Bryce would have knocked the shit out of you!"

An involuntary flinch goes through me at the volume of a boy's voice, echoing through the open space. The movement sends a jolt of pain into my arm, which I now realize is throbbing as I start to come back to my senses.

"I'm supposed to take care of her, and some guy was wrapping his jacket around her and carrying her around instead. That should've been me helping her, but I didn't. I don't see how it wouldn't be my fault."

My body is laying at an awkward angle, but I don't have enough strength to change my position or move to see who was talking.

"Because you don't have to be the hero all the time, Clay, not everything is your fault!"

I question where I am, blinking as my sticky eyelids open to the cold atmosphere.

"Yeah, I get it, but I have to be the hero with her. You know what she's been through, you were there that night when I found her laying there. Someone had drugged her and left her outside, naked in the middle of December. God knows how she ended up that way."

Opening my heavy eyes, I see two boys face each other with their arms crossed, one average height and the other very short.

"She's not a helpless little bunny, she can take care of herself."

Their jaws are locked and tensed, with one boy looking much angrier than the other. His fists are clenched and he paces back and forth, moving his hands from his face to his side anxiously. The other boy is trying to be reassuring, talking in a low voice and reaching out for him, only to be ignored.

"No, Tony, she's going through so much. The anniversary of Jeff's death is coming up soon, and I still don't know so much about her and what she's been through. She needs me, and I wasn't doing shit to help her."

I shift on the ground, gritting my teeth and taking a sharp inhale of breath as an aching stiffness shoots pain up my arms and back.

Trembling as a terrible chill travels down me, I raise my head to see my surroundings better and my vision sharpens on the two boys arguing.

The tiny outline of Tony Padilla stands like a statue in an open enclosure, which appears as somewhere underground with graffiti covering the walls. A draft flows through the open air and I breathe in a sharp burst of air as the other boy turns around.

Clay Jensen paces across the concrete enclosure, his strong figure frozen with tension and anxiety.

"I'm really falling for this girl, man, and I just have all these feelings of protectiveness for her. I just wanna hold her close and hide her away from the whole world."

Clay's voice cracks and Tony looks away with a oddly pained look on his face. I try to reach out for him and signal that I'm awake, but his icy blue eyes drift over my limp body as my strength fails me.

"I get it. You like her," Tony says pointedly, and my eyebrows scrunch in thought as his face falls.

Clay becomes exasperated, breaking away from his line of pacing to face Tony.

"No, listen! It's not just that I like her, I'm really falling for her. She's so beautiful that it makes my heart hurt just to look at her, but I can't stop staring. And she's so smart, too. She's the perfect girl, and I'm so scared I'm going to lose her to this world, you know, like wh- what happened with H- Hannah."

Clay chokes, his hand flying to his mouth as he tries to regains himself. His pale hands tremble as he paces faster and his breathing quickens.

"I think it has something to do with Bryce, cause all this happened when I started talking about how him being a rapist. Wait, did I do this? Fuck, Tony, did I trigger some PTSD or something?"

My stiff arm refuses to lift into the air and I curse under my breath as his back turns away from me again.

"Hey, this isn't your fault," Tony says softly, and my lip curls as he places a hand on Clay's shoulder.

Clay stays completely unaware of Tony, who retracts his hand with a quick glance to my limp body on the floor. I see him out of the corner of my eye, standing still and looking down at the ground, rubbing his fingers together anxiously.

Strength is slowly coming back to me, I'm able to flex my fingers with a small amount of pain.

"I'm sorry to put this on you, man. It's just that I can't tell her cause I don't want to freak her out, and you've been such a good friend to me."

Tony flinches when he calls him a friend, but Clay is oblivious as he continues ranting, talking with his hands and resuming his pacing.

"Nothing this amazing ever happens to me, and now she's passed out on the floor all because I couldn't protect her from Bryce, just like how I couldn't protect Hannah, or Jessica from the monster that preys on every girl in this town. One stupid mistake and I lose her forever, but I can't lose her. She's all I have, it'll break me."

I can move my knees up to my chest, but my arms stay stiff and immovable. My vision is sharply back in focus, and I see Clay with his face in his hands.

"Help," I whisper pathetically, but he doesn't notice me.

I try to call out again, but my voice fails me.

"Clay!" I say again, the back of my throat burning in hoarse pain and I curl into a ball.

He freezes, looking around for the sound of my voice before his frozen blue eyes finally fall on me. My gaze locks onto his, and he gasps before running over to me.

"Oh my god, Ellie, you're awake," Clay breathes happily, kneeling beside me and cupping my face.

A shoot of agony courses down my body as he wraps his arms around my aching back. I gasp from the pain and he lets go instantly, guilt spreading across his pale face.

"Fuck, did I hurt you? I'm so sorry. I'm just so happy that you're okay. I was so scared. You didn't, hit your head or anything serious, right? You don't, um, need to go to the hospital or anything?"

Clay, as he usually does in these situations, stumbles over his words and stutters profusely. He fumbles through rapid and brief sentences, trying to smile reassuringly, but has more of a grimace of pain.

"I'm okay," I whisper, ignoring Tony as he huffs annoyingly as he leans against the wall.

I push my face towards Clay's, wanting to touch his cheek to show my sympathy for him, but the stiff bones in my arms continue to throb and refuse to move.

"You had me so scared, Ellie. We were ten minutes away from calling an ambulance," Clay pulls the blankets higher over my body. I smile affectionately at him as warmth reaches my cold neck.

"Are you feeling okay?" He puts a hand to my forehead to check my temperature.

Nodding, I press my face against his hand. "Yeah, I'm okay. It's just really cold in here," I whisper and giggle as his grimace turns quickly to a warm smile.

Clay reaches down to lift me up, but quickly pauses and looks into my eyes.

"I don't want to hurt you, but is it okay if I pick you up?" His voice is tight with a soft worry that fills my heart with warmth. I nod again as he cautiously pushes his arms under me.

Trying not to yell, I bite my lip as a pounding agony pulses from my arms and back from lying on the cold floor. I push my face into his shoulder to hide my pain from him as he scoops me into a bridal-style carry.

"Hey dude, did you bring the car?" Clay asks Tony, biting back a smile as he stares down at me, laughing like a child in his strong arms. He swings around in tight circles with me in his arms, and I giggle from swerving through the air.

"Yeah, it's outside," Tony pauses to fix his attention on me, and his eyes flicker with a hint of jealously before moving back up to meet the blue shining gaze of my boyfriend, holding me close to his warm chest.

Clay bounces me up in his arms to bring me closer to his pounding heartbeat, which I snuggle into as he starts to walk through the unknown area. I close my eyes and wince as the harsh sun blinds me, finally able to move my hands where the warm rays touch them.

The sharp pain from where my head hit the concrete fades into a throb, distant in the back of my mind. It is so faint that, with Clay to distract me, I almost forget it's there.

We reach Tony's Mustang and I start to laugh again as Clay attempts to lay me down gently in the back. Somewhere in the awkward transfer, he ends up accidentally smacking his head on the frame of the car.

The impact creates a loud thud that brings my hands to my mouth in shock. His cheeks flush a deep red with embarrassment and I touch his face lovingly as I keel over my seat with painful laughter.

I groan softly as Clay slides his arms out from under me and he laughs softly as he closes the door behind him. He sits beside my head and plays with my tangled hair gently, shifting so that I have room to move my head into his lap.

"You're so beautiful," he says quietly as Tony rolls his eyes and jumps roughly into the car, slamming the door loudly behind him.

Clay twirls strands of my colorful hair in his fingers, watching them fall from his hand with the focus of childlike wonder. As he attempts and fails to braid, I painfully recount the words had shared before. A tight anxiety rises in my chest at what he had said when he thought I was still asleep.

I feel the exact same way he said he does, and the idea of him wanting to protect me makes me feel even more attracted to him.

Still, I find myself frustratingly fearful of his emotions. Everyone who has ever loved me, besides my parents, has died. Seeing how close I've grown to Clay, I feel the empowering need to run as I remind myself that anyone who loves ends up being hurt.

Hannah was hurt so badly that she killed herself. Jeff loved me unconditionally and ended up dead trying to protect me. I can't do that to Clay, I love him too much to let him get hurt like everyone else.

I shake my head, my mind racing as I try my best to push my anxiety out.

"Come back," I whine as Clay detaches from me to mutter directions to Tony, who leans a little too close into his whispers for my liking.

He gives a loud exhale of annoyance from the front seat when Clay obliges, leaning into the headrest of the backseat, and a sharp twinge of guilt rushes into me as I examine his face worriedly. Touching his face, I look closer at the cuts on his cheek, bandaged and treated.

Why is he always bleeding? A serious thought rises into my head but I dismiss it as a joke, running my fingers gingerly over his deep cut.

Bruises are dotted all over his skin, hardening his appearance and altering the soft face I know so well. I hold back a gasp as my eyes flicker down to his hand, stretching over me. A dark purple bruise covers his skin, spread across his knuckles and the back of his hand.

Thoughts race through my brain of whose face caused this, and how hard they had been punched.

Despite an initial feeling of shame, I take a deep, shaky breath as the rugged look of his injuries stirs something deep in me, and a heartbeat pounds in my stomach.

"What's wrong?" Clay asks me as he catches me staring at his hand, biting my lip with an mix of confusing emotions shining in my eyes.

I raise my vision to meet his beautiful blue eyes, and trying to formulate an answer as the vibrant icy color of his gaze meddles with my thoughts. They cloud my judgement, and I forget Tony being in the car as I push myself upwards to meet him.

Clashing with his soft lips, I hold the back of his neck to intensify the kiss as Tony shouts in protest and swerves the car in shock.

A wave of defiance floods into me and my hands travel down his chest, feeling his hard muscles under my fingers. He pushes harder into my lips and deepens our kiss as I softly glide my hands over his collarbones and muscular chest. I'm unstoppable, emotions running high.

"Can you two pendejos not do that in my fucking car?" Tony yells at us from the driver's seat, cursing wildly in Spanish. We ignore him, shifting so I lay across the backseat of the car.

Clay positions himself over me and places his hands at my waist, sending electricity up and down my body. A feeling of a strong gravity in my gut pulls me toward him, more attracted to him than I could imagine being with anyone.

We're fully making out in the backseat, tuning out Tony's protests as Clay's hands guide mine into his shirt, where I run over surprisingly toned muscles.

Tony suddenly swerves the car to the side of the road and whips around to face us, his expression bright red with anger.

"Either quit it or get the fuck out of my car," he says furiously, his hand on the back of the chair intimidatingly.

Clay separates from me, disconnecting the kiss and I pout, upset that he chose to listen to Tony. "But-"

"No! Just stop it, or I'm putting you out on the road right now," he states angrily. I shoot a death glare in Tony's direction and he steadily matches my gaze.

He looks away first to move his vision over to Clay, who throws his hand in the air in frustration.

I lock my jaw and grit my teeth, annoyed with Clay for breaking off the kiss and furious with Tony for being the reason it stopped.

"Fine. Just drive me home, then," I say arrogantly, crossing my arms and sitting back upright, ignoring Clay as he moves to wrap his arms around me again.

"Hey, Ellie, you okay?" His voice is soft and quiet, turned away from Tony.

Why is Tony acting so touchy? I've known him for forever, and he's treating me like I've wronged him somehow. We've always been friendly but now he's being weird. I begin to overthink, occasionally glancing at Tony's stiff shoulders.

Is he in love with Clay? A terrible thought strikes me as puzzle pieces begin to fit together.

"I'm fine," I retort, panic flooding through me as my eyes dart from Tony's clenched hands to Clay's oblivious face.

I instantly feel guilty when his baby blue eyes drop, turning away from me. "Didn't mean to snap at you," my voice is quiet enough for Tony to miss as he starts the car back up.

My head rests in the crook of his neck and the tension in his shoulder softens, his fingers lacing gingerly with mine, and I'm careful not to touch any of his dark bruises. An unspoken forgiveness drifts between us, snuggled silently in the backseat of Tony's car as he coasts onto the highway.

What day is it? How long was I out for? Questions run rampant in my mind about this morning.

Who brought me there, and why did I pass out? How did Bryce and the boys react? What if there's something wrong with me? Do I have a brain tumor or did I just black out?

I shake my head, forcing my brain to become blank and question-less, tuning in and out.

The car drifts off into the afternoon air and I shiver with dread as it pulls into the driveway of the school.

People crowd up to the windows, pointing at me in Clay's arms, and their silent whispers are muted behind the glass windows. Taking a deep breath as his arms grow tighter around me, I ready myself to brave through another day.